Thanks to those of you who wrote me over the past month, the words of encouragement were a great boon when I was grasping to pull myself up from the downest of down places I’ve been since 2008.

Have I talked at all about 2008? No? I’ll leave it be then. Let’s just say it was the worst time of my adult life, as in post-college-living-for-real life. And yet, I easily/painfully learned more that year than in the previous ten combined. I am grateful for it. I am not yet grateful for this year so far – although I’ve well-chronicled my troubles with gratitude.

These past few months have rivaled that year, to be sure. I wish I could say hey, thanks guys, you were totally right and my last post about being in over my head was just my fear talking and nothing more – everything turned out fine and dandy. Which, I guess on one level, it did if only because the show happened and is generally fine, but not without doing me some heavy emotional damage. That musical basically broke me. Broke my spirit. Broke my confidence. Broke my health. Somehow it even broke my queerness – which was the weirdest thing. I wasn’t gay enough for the stupid gay musical. I kept/keep waiting for the time when the satisfaction of seeing it through to completion would wash over me, when I could step back and heave a well-deserved sigh of relief and say, “Wow. I’m glad I did that.”

Not gonna happen. I wish I had these three months back. Hell, I wish I had these three years I’ve been attached to this project back. I’ve never been so beaten by something with no return to show for it. Even my wise, wise lady, ever the voice of reason and diplomacy in my turbulent life, can’t figure out what I was supposed to learn from this one. Don’t do projects you don’t feel passionately about? I guess, maybe. Although that’s already a tenet I live by fairly successfully.

I think – I have just the barest glimmer – that maybe this lesson has something to do with my tendency to make decisions seeking glory instead of truth. Apparently I have just violently informed myself that I’m (cough) too old for that shit.

The best thing is that I never have to do it again. So I’m going to try and sleep it off – my exhaustion has reached new-found depths. And I do realize the extreme first-world nature of this crisis – boo hoo, I directed a musical and it didn’t go well, yikes. I have food and love and shelter and abundance. I just seem to have misplaced my spirit – I’m sure I left it lying around here somewhere.

It’s times like these I wish I had a good gay buddy to hang out with. Someone who would buy me a beer (or four) and take me accessories shopping and compliment my hair. Because damn if my hair doesn’t do well in a crisis.

Last night saw the illustrious (sort of ) beginning and righteous (mostly) ending of the mini-musical “Skip: The Lesbian Carnie” — the official spinoff of the gothic horror rock musical I’ve been performing in — in both of which I play(ed) the love-doomed Skip.

I can’t say I’m not a little relieved that it’s all over. Here’s what happened: the show was part of a late-night series where each Saturday 5 short pieces are performed, the audience casts its beer-enhanced votes, and three shows continue on to the next week while two go home. Had our show continued, it would have meant that all of my free nights this week would be devoted to creating the next episode. Quite frankly, I’m just too tired for that, although I was honored to have been given a chance to strut my stuff in this format. It’s not often that lesbians of any kind get the leading role, especially in something so esoteric as a musical. A big, singing, dancing butch girl is more often than not just a gag or a figment of my professional imagination. It’s also me.

The thing is, my relief also feels a bit… subversive. Don’t get the impression I didn’t do my best, or that I wasn’t invested in the material, but I definitely had some second thoughts. My Pretty GF summed it up rather succinctly – “Well, the entire script was one big vagina joke. Not much to go on, there.”

And there it is again. That wall. That seemingly impenetrable facade which shows us that butch characters can only be vehicles for vagina jokes. And I love me some vagina jokes (tasteful ones… no pun intended) but I challenge the writers out there to find out what’s beyond that. I tried to play Skip as honestly as possible, while still in the SNL-style of the piece, but the audience rightfully voted us down. Because guess what, producers? Writers? They want more. Our piece was the most highly anticipated, my character the most referenced, so our fall was the greatest. We got our cheap laughs, and some well-earned, and we went home.

Who’s going to write the true butch role? Who’s going to do it in an under-used medium, like a musical? (Sure, sure, not everyone likes musicals… but still. It could be awesome. Butches who can sing are generally very popular. See Chris Pureka and then try to disagree.)

I’m ready whenever the script is. I know the audience will be there. And maybe we’ll even throw in a vagina joke, just to make ourselves laugh.